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Toasting a new firmware on a mobile phone always make me nervous. Will the upgrade succeed or will I brick the device, rendering it an expensive paper weight?

There have been two things bothering me with the Pearl, and both have been fixed with the 4.2.0.51 firmware:

When receiving a call, it took a few seconds after pushing the green button until the other person was able to hear me. This is a big problem since the caller does not know you have answered the phone. You keep saying "hello" a number of times until you have established that you can hear each other.

The trackball was muting the phone ringing. This has been widely reported, but it did not actually affect me. I have had no case that I did not hear the phone ringing because of this defect. Still I was a bit uneasy that it might happen so I am glad to have this new firmware on the device.

When you try to download the firmware, you will find that RIM only lists a Rogers version. This is not a problem. Download the package, stop Desktop Manager, run the installer, then remove the vendor.xml file. Load Desktop Manager and it should ask you to upgrade the phone.

I also edited the BlackBerry.alx file and removed the _vendor tag from the Vodafone Today theme. I think this is the most elegant and functional theme for the BlackBerry. Isn't it funny, that we tried hard to remove carrier branding from our phones just last year, and that this year, Vodafone has come up with branding that you actually want?

Comments

I've updated probably 40 different BlackBerry devices - some of them multiple times through various release levels. I have NEVER had an upgrade hose the device. I think only once or twice it failed on the restore. But even then I had the backup to just reload and all was well.

Man, I want 4.2 on my 8700 or I want Cingular to release a Pearl! I've had this 8700 since January and it's getting old! ;) I have read sporadic reports that 4.2 will allow you to open wav attachments - that would be an excellent feature for business voice mail users.

I have tried to brick various BlackBerry devices (reset, remove battery and disconnect cable connection during firmware installation process) and I never suceeded in doing so. I was always able to recover the devices even when they only had a flashing red LED and wouldn't boot up anymore. I think RIM made the firmware update process quite fail-safe. The only BlackBerry I did not try to brick is my BlackBerry Pearl 8100 as I have currently only one ;-)

i am really happy to hear that you consider our graphics and the Vodafone today screen-concept as attractive and recommendable. As the responsible person for graphics/iconography here in Vodafone, i am delighted by the fact that an expert gives such a postive feedback and sees the advantages of what we developed lately.
With nice regards and greetings from Düsseldorf
Guy Papstein

I followed your instructions and I bricked my blackberry. I have a unlocked pearl that i use with cingular. I renamed the vendor.xml file and removed all of the _vendorid tags in the blackberry.alx file. Now, my blackberry does not load. What can I do?

You may have to wait a little bit longer to have it load. It may easily take 15 minutes to load after the flash.

The email address you left when writing the comment seems to be missing a character. Maybe you were as impatient when you flashed the device. ;-) Don't worry, even if you cannot reflash, you can still use Javaloader to erase the Pearl and then do a new flash.

HI Purchased a Blackberry 8100 Pearl.. and did the unlock Via Imei calculation .. code works and i can insert other sim cards and phone now accepts them but it will only make calls on the 850/1900 band (Band that tmobile uses in U.S) but it wont make or recieve any calls on the 900/1800 band it finds the network but for some reason it wont make any calls any idea if i need to reflash the firmware? tried the rogers firmware that was posted at top of this thread but that didnt work :(... any ideas appreciated or if u know where i can locate an unbranded flash.. to try
Thnx in advance guys